Beauty and vandalism

Lacking inspiration today I turned to an orchid. Once enjoyed only by the ultra rich they are now available at every supermarket in the land. 

More bad news this morning from Palmyra; IS vandals have now blown up three sand-stone funerary towers including one of the best-preserved, the Tower of Elahbel, built in AD103 and shown as an "extra" photograph.

The multi-storey sandstone monuments, belonged to rich Palmyrene families, and stood outside the city walls in an area known as the Valley of the Tombs. The towers were divided into compartments, or loculi, into which sarcophagi were placed before being sealed with slabs of stone carved with an image of the deceased and painted in lively colours.